


Rare Birds of the Southern Atlantic

by jamjar



Category: John Finnemore's Double Acts
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-17 02:02:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13066815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamjar/pseuds/jamjar
Summary: Puffins are not native to the southern atlantic, and neither are Danish penguin observers or British members of the foreign office. Still, home is what you make of it...





	Rare Birds of the Southern Atlantic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Enigel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enigel/gifts).



> In the absence of other indicators, Søndergaard's first name is Søren, a choice I immediately regretted every time I had to type out the accent. At roughly that time, South Georgia was shifting from a small whaling outpost (mostly populated by Norwegians) to a British Antarctic Survey outpost. It does have a church, it did have reindeer (up until people realised that hey, large invasive species with major ecosystem effects, maybe not the best thing on this incredibly biodiverse island that's naturally devoid of grazers), and at least one couple were married in it and one baby christened in it. Most of those facts have not made it into this fic.

_Somewhere in the southern atlantic ocean, on a small disputed island..._

 

  
  
Søren poured out two careful measures of brandy into each mug and sipped his cautiously. The first time he'd drunk some, it hadn't occurred to him how long it had been since he'd last had alcohol, and he'd been drunk on half a glass without noticing. It hadn't been quite enough to make it an even game of chess, but it had been closer than usual, and Søren liked the nice, comfortable margin of victory playing chess with Bunning usually provided.  
  
He hadn't planned to drink any today until after their chess game, but now, perhaps, a little celebration was justified. Besides, they had played chess of sort, although not so much against each other as against international politics and maps and... well, either way they had won the game together, which almost never happened in chess, and now a little brandy in good company was justified.  
  
His hide was too small for two people, with Bunning in it. This might not have been quite so true if Bunning had been someone else-- certainly, it hadn't seemed so  when Captain Robroek had dropped him off here, almost two years ago. Cosy, yes, but not quite so cosy as this.  
  
But Bunning was a solid presence, as solid as one of the elephant seals that gathered on the far side of the island. Søren was thin in comparison, though less so since Bunning had started bringing his supplies. Feeding him up, he thought. Like one of his Lancelot penguins bringing back fish for its land-bound chick, and with the same air of diligent affection. He straightened things up as he went about, neatening up Søren's stack of notebooks and moving Søren's coat to its hook without apparently noticing. After he'd gone, there was always a day or two where Søren could see the shape he'd left behind before his natural messiness eroded it. The thought of it made a wave of fondness rise up inside him, warming him from toes to the tips of his ears. He hadn't missed people, until Bunning came. He still didn't, most of the time, but it was reassuring to see Bunning in his base.  
  
Or possibly that was the brandy. It had been rather a while."Does this make me a diplomat?"

  
"What? does what make you what?" Bunning said, hanging his coat up over the back of the chair near the stove to dry out.  
  
"Well, if I am the only Danish representative in this British territory..."  
  
"Oh, that does remind me, I bought over some reindeer meat as a diplomatic gift. Since you’re no longer occupying British territory and all." He rummaged in his bag, pulling out the contract Søren hadn't signed, and then a wrapped wax-paper package. It looked out of place here, too much like the ones Søren would get from the butcher before he left Denmark.  
  
"I didn't know there were reindeer here," Søren said. He picked it up-- a good weight. Oh, it had been a long time since he had proper meat, from something that. A stew, maybe? Oh, there had been a tin of some kind of berries, maybe he could...  
  
"Brought over with the whalers, I think. Didn't you see them on your way over?"  
  
Søren shrugged. "I was only in Grytviken for a day before I came here. I saw some furs in the cabin, but I suppose I thought they'd been brought over. Brought over empty, that is. Without the rest of the deer."  He took another sip of his brandy. It felt a warm glow in his stomach. Maybe he should save some, to have with the venison.

"You don't need to rush back to tell Whitehall that this is no longer Skarstenø? Or Good Will either?"

"Oh, no rush. I have to do my best to outsmart the tricky Danish diplomat they've placed here. Do you have any tea about?"

"Yes. Some mysteriously washed up on shore a week ago."

"Jolly lucky, that." Bunning found the kettle and started to make the tea. It was probably Søren's job to do that, but Bunning did seem to enjoy it so.

  
"Time for a quick game?" Bunning said gesturing at the board and box of chesspieces.

  
"Always," Søren said.

"No special plans with the penguins?

  
Søren shook his head. "I was going to take a few sketches of the penguins, but that can wait. They don't change much, to be honest."

  
"I didn't know you were an artist," Bunning said. "Are you any good?"  
  
"I am the best penguin portraitist on the island," Søren said. "Assuming you don't paint yourself, that is." Bunning's expression stopped him. "Are you a painter, then?" he asked, watching Bunning's face, turn faintly pink.

  
"Not really, not-- I dabble a bit with watercolours. Just as a hobby, you know."  
  
"I didn't know that,” Søren said, oddly charmed by the idea of Peter with a paintbrush, one of those little tins of watercolours, trying to capture a landscape with the same dutiful care he did everything else. “Perhaps you could come out with me some time?"  
  
Bunning looked very much like he regretted saying anything. "I'm very much an amateur. Wouldn't want to get in your way while you're observing the penguins."  
  
"Well, I am an amateur penguin scientist," Søren said. "So it does make us well-matched."  
  
"Oh, yes, you are, aren't you? I'd sort of forgotten that. Well, maybe some time,” Bunning said. He looked embarrassed, but also pleased. “Well, if you’re sure I won’t get in your way.”  
  
“I think it will be nice,” Søren said honestly. “Watching them with a friend, for once.” Bunning looked surprised for a moment, as if-- “Oh, you’re not going to say we’re not friends, are you?” Søren said. “Surely we’ve established that now?”  
  
“Yes. Yes, we are.” Bunning smiled. “I was just thinking, if we’re friends, I suppose you ought to call me Peter.”  
  
“I can, but I thought your name was George?”  
  
“It is, technically. but nobody calls me that.” He poured the teas and measured out a careful teaspoon of sugar for Soren, “Except for my mother, of course,” he added.  
  
“Of course?”  
  
Bunning looked embarrassed, “Well, there were rather a lot of Georges at school, so my friends always called me Peter. Because of my last name.” He must have realised this didn’t make things any clearer, so he added, “Bunning, like bunny. And Peter, like Peter Rabbit, from— do you have Beatrix Potter in Denmark?”  
  
“Peter Kanin,” Søren said. “I read it to my niece when she was little.”  
  
George-Peter looked rather more shocked at that then Søren felt it really called for. “I didn’t know you had a niece.”  
  
“I do. Two, now. And a brother.”  
  
“Well, fancy that.” George-Peter shook his head. “I suppose I rather thought of you as, well, rather singular.”  
  
“In the strictest sense, I am, here. Except for when you join me, of course.” He held out his hand, realised he was still wearing his glove, pulled it off and held it out again. “Søren Søndergaard,” he said. “Please call me Søren.”  
  
“Søren,” Peter said carefully, closer to perfect than he’d ever managed with Søndergaard. “How do you do?” He shook Søren’s hand firmly, meeting his eyes. Practised friendliness, Søren thought, but no less sincere.  
  
“Very well, thank you, Peter,” Søren said, proper as if he was still at school. Peter’s fingers were cold where they crossed his hand. He hadn’t been wearing his gloves on the boat, perhaps.  
  
He dropped Peter’s hand and pushed him towards the stove. “Warm up first, and then we can have our game."  
  
  
  
  
  
_One Week Later_  
  
Søren woke up and remembered immediately that he’d been dreaming about Peter’s hands. Not a strange dream. Like most of the dreams he remembered, it was very normal, made up of the day before or the day to come. Maybe sometimes, he'd find Peter scolding Lauren Bacall for her behaviour, or he'd agree to mind little Natalie for Jimmy Cagney and Greta Garbo when they went out to swim, but his dreams were mostly made up of the same events as his days.  
  
Even this one. It hadn’t been anything… well, not anything even Peter would blush at. In his dream, they’d played chess, and Peter’s hands had been warm as he moved the pieces. Søren hadn’t touched them, but he’d known they were anyway. In his dream, he was pleased, proud of it-- somehow in his dream, he knew it was because the cabin was warm, not just because Peter had remembered his gloves this time.  
  
And then Peter had asked Søren if his hands were cold, and had reached across to hold them, to warm them up.  
  
Peter, Søren thought, would see nothing strange or meaningful in that dream. Søren knew himself better. The dream hadn’t felt sad at the time, but waking out of it left him feeling something close to it. Loneliness, perhaps, in a way he was generally immune to.  
  
Still, Peter would be coming tomorrow, weather permitting. Some of the chicks had started to moult out of their brown down in a rather hilarious fashion, and he hoped Peter would bring his watercolours or at least take Søren’s sketchbook, so they could have an excuse to enjoy the sight together.  
  
He got up, brushed his teeth and was halfway through breakfast when he heard the boat.  
Or not the boat-- a boat, an unfamiliar one.  
  
When he came out of his cabin, he could see a small boat coming up to the island and, a little further away, a larger ship with a visible Danish flag. For a second, he wondered if he should hide, before he realised how ridiculous the idea was. If they’d come to take him off the island, he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.  
  
The boat landed, and he started down to meet it. One man was already on the beach when he arrived, being eyed curiously by Diana Dors and ignored by the sals. The man still getting off the boat waved when he saw him. “I’ll be with you in a minute,” he said. For a second, the words sounded strange before they resolved themselves into Danish. “Jans, a hand?”  
  
They were unloading something from the boat. By the time Søren reached him, they was down to the last crate.  
  
“Supplies,” he said gesturing at them. “Do you want a hand taking them up? Where is your base?”  
  
Søren realised his mouth was open, so he shut it. “That would be good,” he said. “Are you... why are you here? And who are you?” And are you here to take me off the island, or stay here yourself?  
  
“Lieutenant Niels Jensen,” the man said. “I’m on the Beatrice over there. We were told to come by with supplies for you. We would have radioed, but...” He shrugged, then turned back to the other man who was edging to the penguins. “Jans! Stop bothering the penguins. Honestly, you’ve seen them before…”  
  
“But not this close, sir!” the other man, Jans, said cheerfully. “Or well, only at the zoo. They’re not scared of me at all!”  
  
“Sorry about him, first trip out,” Jensen said. “So, where should we take this lot?”  
  
His hide was too small for all three of them to sit comfortably, but after a cup of coffee-- oh, coffee! More bitter than he remembered, but the smell… Jans went out to look at the penguins. Niels was polite and friendly and, accent aside, it was so good (and so strange) to hear Danish in any other voice than his own. It sounded like his parents, his brother, his friends, even his nieces-- even Niels' definite drift into the strong Bornholmsk accent he’d probably started with didn’t change that. And he was happy to share with Søren all of the news from home, all of the things that Søren wouldn’t think to ask Peter.    
  
It made him feel a little homesick. Not enough to take Niels up on his offer to have dinner on the ship, but enough for him to think about writing to his brother and nieces. Perhaps he could persuade Peter to contribute a couple of drawings for them, when he came by tomorrow.  
  
The working penguins were coming back and the island was noisy with their gossip as they changed roles with the brooders. He was pleased to see John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart bow and squark to each other like newlyweds, before John Wayne carefully took custody of their egg.  
  
He made a careful note of it -JW and HB showed early courting behaviour, despite already being parents- before he heard his name.  
  
“Søren! Are you there!”  
  
“Peter?”  
  
“You’re here!” Peter said, relief clear in his voice. He brought the boat to shore and scrambled off, charging up to Søren quickly enough to make the penguins flap their wings at him before settling down.  
  
Søren blinked. “Where else would I be?”  
  
“We had word of a Danish ship in the vicinity,” Peter said. He sounded flustered, worried. “I thought-- well, I thought perhaps since this is no longer considered Danish territory, they’d come to take you back.” He stopped rather sharply, a metre away from Søren and clasped his hands behind his back, making him look almost like he was standing to attention. “But they haven’t, have they?”  
  
“No, no,” Søren said. “They were here to bring me my supplies.”  
  
“What, now? I thought they weren’t due for another few months.”  
  
“I suppose, with everything that’s happened…”  
  
Peter opened his mouth to say something, closed it and opened it again. Like one of the Lancelots, Søren thought, though somewhat quieter. “I think it’s a bit shoddy, coming by with supplies now,” Peter said eventually.  
  
Søren shrugged. “It is a bit out of their way.”  
  
Peter scoffed. “Look, either you think a chap has enough supplies to be getting on with, in which case you don’t need to come by a couple of months early without any kind of warning, or you don’t think he has, in which case you should damn well have made sure that he did. Or at least have made sure there was some kind of regular check in. If I’d left a man on a small island with only penguins, I’d damn well make sure to come by with the odd can of corned beef regularly, just to make sure he hasn’t… well, just to make sure everything is all ticking over alright..”  
  
“Yes,” Søren said fondly.”You would.”  
  
He looked embarrassed at having his own kindness acknowledged.  “Clearly just an excuse to make sure we’re not drilling on old Good Will.”  
  
“That sounds very plausible,” Søren agreed. “They did leave me with a radio.” He gestured at the latest arrival, placed next to the somewhat more battered one Peter had left many weeks earlier. He watched as several expressions crossed Peter’s face, settling somewhere in disgruntled approval as he picked it up.  
  
“Better late than never, I suppose,” Peter said.  
  
“And I am under strict instructions to use it if I see any sign of your lot intruding on old Skarstenø.”  
  
“Well, that’s no good,” Peter said. “Unless they’re planning on keeping something floating nearby, the only people you could contact with this would be, well, us on South Georgia. And then we’d have to relay a message for you about our lot secretly drilling away on Good Will. Not very practical.”  
  
“Unless the point is to make it clear that I have a radio, and if they don’t get a message then it is because you never sent it.”  
  
“That would make sense.”  
  
“In a diplomatic way,” Søren agreed. “You didn’t need to rush over here, you know.” And then, before Peter could come up with a reason, he added, “But I’m glad you did.” He clasped Peter’s shoulder sincerely, and Peter’s hand came up and rested over his.  
  
“Well then,” Peter said. “I’m glad I did too.”

 

  
  
_One Week Later_

  
It was raining outside, not heavily, but persistently enough that staying in his little hide to play chess was by far the better option. It was slightly disappointing-- Søren was still looking forwards to seeing Peter paint. He still seemed faintly embarrassed by it it, which meant he was either quite good or very bad. It was clearly something he viewed as very much a private hobby, which made the fact that he was willing to share it with Søren… well, it had been a long time since Søren had been anyone that someone wanted to share their small, personal joys with.  
   
But winning at chess was always fun, and sharing the gossip of his Lancelot Penguins was even more enjoyable. Peter made a good audience, straightlaced enough to be pleasing scandalised at the latest goings-on, but with enough good-humour to be sincerely pleased when it all worked out.  
  
“Lauren Bacall made eyes at John Wayne,” Søren said. “He was not happy to see her. He chased her away from little Ingrid very insistently.” He mimed the determined flapping with his hands, but resisted the urge to imitate John Wayne’s vicious head-pecks.  
  
“Well, I should hope so, coming back just when everything’s settled. What did Bogart have to say about it?”  
  
“She waited until Bogart was out looking for fish.”  
  
“I’m not surprised. I can’t imagine he’d be happy to see again after all that.”  
  
“I am a little worried that she might try to rekindle something with Bogart again,” Søren confessed, as he took Peter’s Humboldt with his Marconi.  
  
“Surely not,” Peter said. He moved his King Penguin across to guard his Emperor. “He wouldn’t take her back after all that?”  
  
“Who can say?” Søren said. “I understand that it sometimes happens in people, though I haven’t seen it in the penguins myself.”  
  
“I’d hope they’d have more sense than we do,” Peter said. “People do make some shocking choices, when it comes to love and the heart and such.”  
  
“I suppose they do.” Søren hadn’t, though he knew friends that had.  
  
“And you, have you ever... That, is, is there someone you left..." Peter trailed off, and Søren was very aware of two things: that Peter had said someone, rather than woman, and that his face was slightly red and he was looking away, embarrassed. When Søren didn't say anything, Peter went on, "Not that-- not that there shouldn't be, or wouldn't be, though of course I'm not saying there should or--"  
  
"If there was somebody to leave behind," Søren said, "I wouldn't have left them behind." He put down his chess piece very deliberately, threatening Peter's emperor-king. Peter would have to move his king-queen back to defend it, and then Søren could take that piece in his next move. “Him.” He could hear the sound of the wind outside, the distant call of penguin and albatrosses and birds. Closer, the sound of their breathing and Peter’s clothes rustling as he shifted about.  
  
“Not the love them and leave them type?” Peter said eventually, quietly.  
  
Søren shook his head. If he’d been in Denmark, if he’d been speaking in Danish, he would know how to ask, what to ask. His English felt clumsy for this. Peter had said nothing about himself, and he didn’t think Peter would react badly as such, but the thought of making things difficult between them was unbearable.  
  
“Some of the whalers and the scientists-- there’s one chap who mentioned that his wife had just had their first baby before setting off down here,” Peter said. “Never been sure how one-- well, it seems strange to me, to leave someone behind like that.”  
  
“You never have?”  
  
“I was,” Peter said. “Married, I mean."  
  
It was surprising, more than it should have been. Many men were married, and of course it was normal, natural for Peter to be one of them. It was-- he hadn't mentioned a wife, but-- of course, "was", not "am", which could be for half a dozen reasons, most of them sad. And-- well, Peter hadn't made any mention of children and he would have, if he'd had any.  
  
Søren let the silence build without meaning to. It felt awkward between them, in a way it usually didn't. He looked up from the board, and caught Peter starting to look down, like he'd been watching him. He had to say something, soon, or it would become something heavier, and there was no reason for it to be. Many men were married, or widowed, or divorced. Just because Søren never had-- well.  
  
He wasn't sure he wanted to know more, but not to say anything would be worse. It was very easy to imagine Peter with a wife. It would, Søren thought heavily, suit him. He reached for his king penguin Queen, picking her up. "I'm sorry, you said, you were..." he trailed off, keeping his eyes on the board.  
  
  
"It was when I was-- well, not young, I suppose, though it certainly seems that way now.” Peter took a sip of his coffee-- black, without sugar, which Søren suspected was a nod to Søren’s supplies. “Lizzy worked in the foreign office too, and we just-- well, I hadn't really thought about marrying, but I hadn't not thought about it either, if you see what I mean, and then I met Lizzy." He sounded fond and slightly wistful.  
  
Hadn't thought, but hadn't not thought. Søren resisted the urge to examine that for hidden meanings. He'd always been bad at that, anyway. Wishful thinking and pessimism generally failed to find a happy medium.  
  
“Can I ask…”  
  
"She caught the flu over winter, when we were visiting her family in Yorkshire." Peter said. "Quite a blow at the time, but one goes on."  
  
"I'm sorry," Søren said, and meant it.  
  
Peter shrugged, his eyes still on the board. "These things happen, I suppose," he said, quietly. It seemed particularly sad, in that moment. The thought of Peter, quietly grieving and outwardly practical about it all, his acceptance of his loss.  
  
"You never thought about marrying again?" Søren asked.  
  
Peter paused on his answer, and looked up-- not quite at Søren, but past him, frowning as he put his answer together. "Naturally I did," Peter said. “I missed her, of course, but I missed being married as well, if you see what I mean. But I never-- well, I think I always rather felt that if one was going to have someone, to be married or--" he waved a hand vaguely, in roughly the direction of the penguins, “or be nested as it were, then that person had to be… well, someone for you. Someone you could see yourself settling with. Which is not to say I’m-- is it swans, where if one dies the other one does too?”  
  
“Not the ones in Denmark.”  
  
“Right. Well, I’m not like them, whichever ones they are. Not against the idea of finding someone again. I’m rather an odd duck, I suppose, and I never quite found anyone else I really wanted to set up shop with. And I’m not the sort-- that is, there never seemed much point in pheasanting around, when you know yourself to be more of a puffin, so to speak.” He took another sip of his coffee, making a face at the taste. “If what you’re waiting for is someone who you want to be a puffin with.” He met Søren’s eyes and then looked back down at the board. “Sorry, is it my go or yours?”  
  
“Mine,” Søren said, which was only partly true. He moved one of his Humboldt’s forward to protect his emperor king.  
  
Peter leaned forward, his hand going to one of his own Humboldt’s and, almost without realising what he was doing, Søren’s hand caught it before he could grab the piece. He turned it palm up. It was warm for once, a few calluses on his palm and a fading inkstain on the cushion of his thumb. He pulled it towards himself slowly, lightly. Peter could have broken his hold with the faintest of tugs, even a slight resistance.  
  
He didn’t. Søren was wondering what he’d do next, but his head was bowing and he pressed a kiss into the palm of Peter’s hand. He felt immediately ridiculous, like someone pretending to be someone out of a romantic movie, and immediately overwhelmed. He turned his head into the palm of Peter’s hand and wanted to let his lips move down his wrist.  
  
And then he heard Peter push his chair back, lean over the table. His hand pressed Søren’s face up. He looked determined, calm, and handsome because of it. He leaned further and kissed Søren, a little uncertainty, but with all his heart behind it.  
  
It had been a long time since something like this, the sense of familiarity and newness when kissing someone you had never kissed before, the small differences between this and all the other kisses Søren had given and taken. It felt closer to the first time he’d kissed a boy than any of the times in between, all the excitement and disbelief that this could happen, and the surety that it was absolutely what Søren was meant to be doing.  
  
Eventually, his back reminded him that this was an awkward angle, and he pulled back just enough to break the kiss. His hand was on Peter’s wrist now, pushing back the sleeve of his jumper slightly. Peter was still leaning forwards, other hand on the table for balance. “I mean it about the puffins,” Peter said. “Not sure if you got my meaning there.”  
  
Søren smiled at him. “I always understand the things you tell me, when you tell me other things.”  
  
  
  
  
end.


End file.
